It is Chinese New Year (in accordance with the Chinese lunar calendar).In Cantonese the greeting is 新年好 - kung hei fat choi. In Mandarin Gong Xi Fa Cai. This year is the year of the Horse.

In any case I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk about why topicality is a useful technique for promotion and marketing communication. Sometimes

If people are already talking about a subject - something that is newsworthy - then your contribution increases in relevance.

It is also an opportunity to twist an idea around to make it more engaging. The dummy example I have made might be a way of taking a product that you wouldn't normally be thinking about or talking about and placing it into the 'timeline'.

It is an opportunity to be surprising too. Some topics are serious but lend themselves to wit or humour. Be careful with your brand though. What might seem hilarious to the creative team on your account might fall flat with your customers. Given that you pay the creative team but your customers pay you it might be wise to wait a couple of beats before agreeing to a campaign like American Apparel's Sandy Hurricane ad - which caused a storm of protest.

My ad is opportunistic - there was no plan. But it is important these days to be planning to be open to opportunity. Capitalising on what is happening in the world with fresh, witty or pointed content is a mindset you should be cultivating in your activity.

It is way of participating in the conversations that happen in the world your brands inhabit. Rigid plans can easily be disrupted. German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke famously said 'No battle plan survives contact with the enemy (though he probably actually said something like 'Kein Schlachtplan überlebt den Kontakt mit dem Feind.'

What are the best topical ads or newsjacks you've seen? Leave a link in the comments section.

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David MacGregor

This blog is a notepad of contemporaneous and sometimes extemporaneous thoughts about creativity, strategy and ideas.I also produce occasional white papers - join my mailing list to get priority on those.

I'll try to share some of the things I've learned with you - I'll try to make the blog follow my rules: